Mike Peed has an interesting eye-opening article in the January 10, 2011 The New Yorker about a blight that is affecting our beloved bananas. I didn't know this until I read his article but all of us who buy bananas at the grocery store in the United States are eating one kind of banana: the Cavendish; in 2008 we Americans ate 7.6 billion pounds of them. (And I have to say I never really thought about what type of banana I was eating until today. So shame on me. I linger over the apples though -- should I try Gala or Fuji or possibly Winesap -- but I just grab a bunch of bananas and off I go.)
The article opens with the author visiting Robert Borsato, a fruit farmer in the Northern Territory of Australia. In the late 1990s Mr. Borsato thought Humpty Doo looked like an excellent place to grow bananas. And as I write this post, I checked Darwin's weather report for today and see that they are under a flood warning. (Oh, Australia, I hope you don't wash away.)
Borsato's banana crops began suffering long before the widespread flooding of 2011, however. His Cavendish crop was being decimated by a soil-borne fungus called Tropical Race Four. This fungus goes around the world wiping out the Cavendishes. Scientists believe that it is only a matter of time before Tropical Race Four fungus will make it to our hemisphere.
If can get your hands on a copy of that New Yorker, I urge you to read the article. We take the banana for granted. It's our go to food for toddlers, a handy in-between meals snack, a great source of potassium and other nutrients. We slice bananas and put them on our cereals, blend them into smoothies, even dip them into chocolate.
What would we do without that familiar fruit that, held just right, looks like it's smiling at us?
I have posted a recipe for a delicious dish of bananas and quinoa on Videojug.
Link: Bananas and Quinoa for Breakfast
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